the woods are lovely, dark and deep (and I have promises to keep)
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: As a child, princess Andromeda is betrothed to prince Rabastan. It is logical, and he would make a good husband, but Andromeda isn't in love with him.


Written for the Quidditch League Round 8 - Chaser 2 for the Appleby Arrows, using this headcanon: [Beater 1, DobbyRocksSocks, Harpies]-[Andromeda was betrothed to Rabastan before she did a flit on her family.] and the following prompts: (image) art/Running-away-from-blue-171028854 , (food) bagel, (dialogue) "You have his eyes." and Hogwarts' Celtic Challenge: The Children of Lir, (scenario) curse, fairytale!AU.

Thanks to Sam and Sophie for betaing!

 _Word count:_ 2440

 **the woods are lovely, dark and deep (and I have promises to keep)**

As a child, Andromeda isn't told that Rabastan Lestrange is her betrothed until she's seven, but she knows anyway. Part of her thinks she's always known, too—after all, there had to be a reason for the way he was always around, their older siblings' romance notwithstanding.

It makes sense too: Rodolphus is the eldest son of a king, meant to inherit his crown; Bellatrix the eldest daughter of a king, meant for the same—together they merge two kingdoms into one. Marrying Rabastan and Andromeda only serves to tie the two families, the two kingdoms, closer together, and to the people, those are the things that matter.

Andromeda likes Rabastan a lot, that's the thing. He isn't cruel, like her older sister can be sometimes—like so many other princes their age are—and he isn't cold, like Narcissa is learning to be even now. There's a fire raging through him, a thirst to prove himself to the world, that Andromeda really likes.

He never really judges her for liking adventures a little more than a princess perhaps should, and he always makes sure to accompany her, to be safe. He paints himself as her most loyal knight, and Andromeda loses count of the pilfered sour tarts and bagels they snatch from the kitchens.

He always makes sure to grab her favorites, too, and while they typically end up fighting for it, Andromeda also somehow always ends up getting to eat that last bagel, warm and moist as it melts in her mouth.

He would make a good husband, but Andromeda doesn't love him. She thinks that perhaps she could learn to, with time, but she's aware that all too often, princesses don't get to marry for love. Sometimes, a good friend is all they can hope for.

So when the news come, when their parents gather their three daughters and the two Lestrange princes in the Great Hall, and announce that Andromeda will wed Rabastan on her seventeenth birthday, she may not really know what to think about it, but she doesn't feel any surprise at the announcement.

The prophecy surprises her though.

Everything changes, after that prophecy.

A witch breaks into the castle on Andromeda's seventh birthday and ambushes them where they're standing, King Cygnus and his wife, Queen Druella, having just told the news to their children.

She storms in, dark magic following her like a shroud, old blonde hair shadowing mad blue eyes.

" _Unless you change your ways and let light back into your realm, your kingdom will shrivel and rot until it is as lifeless and black as your name,"_ the witch hisses, her words heavy with power.

Andromeda's parents gasp, no doubt feeling the curse already settling in—gods know Andromeda can—and call for their guards, but it's useless. With one last grand cackle, the witch twists on her feet and vanishes with a great _crack!_

The fairy appears then, first a small dot of glittering blue, he grows into a tall man with sad, ancient eyes. He looks human like this, but also like an old wizard, with his long white beard and shimmering clothes.

"Your Majesties," he says, bowing his head slightly, "I came to apologize for my sister. I tried to stop her before she could reach you, but I failed—and for that, I am deeply sorry."

"Sorry?" Cygnus spits. "Your _sister_ just _cursed_ my kingdom and you're _sorry_?"

"What my husband means is that you have magic as well. Surely there is something you can do to help us?" Druella quickly adds, resting a calming hand on her husband's arm. She looks very kind like this, but Andromeda's mother can look kind as she orders someone's execution. You can't look at her face to know the truth of her soul; you have to look into her eyes, and they are cold and greedy.

From the way the fairy suddenly looks very tired, Andromeda rather suspects he knows that as well as she does. Still, he fulfills their request.

"I'm afraid I cannot undo my sister's curse," he says, bowing his head. "However, I can alter it."

"And how is that going to help us exactly?" Bellatrix demands. She looks queenly already, young though she may be, and Druella sends her an approving look; but Andromeda rather thinks her sister looks as dark as the witch who just cursed them.

"I can grant you a savior," the fairy says, "a person who will be able to return your realm to its uncursed state and who will see it flourish."

Rodolphus, smirking, steps forward almost immediately. Bellatrix eyes him greedily, her fingers hovering inches above his forearm. "I will accept this glorious responsibility with honor, Wizard," he states, but the old man shakes his head.

"Alas, it must be someone from the line my sister cursed. So the fates have declared."

There are three sisters to choose from, but he is staring right at Andromeda as though she is the only one in the room.

"Her?" Bellatrix scoffs. "It should be me—I'm the oldest, I'm the one who's meant to be queen here. This should be my responsibility."

"Forgive me, Princess, but you are already too old for my magic to take hold, while today is your sister's seventh birthday. An auspicious sign," he adds reverently.

The queen sighs, looking over at her children: Bellatrix quietly seething, Andromeda a little stunned, and Narcissa, curious and a little lost as she plays with the hem of her dress.

"I see we have no choice here, then," she states, lips pursed thinly. "You are sure you cannot choose someone else for this prophecy of yours?"

"The choice is already made, Your Majesties," he answers. " _When your second daughter turns twenty-one_ — _seven years three-fold_ — _she will know love, and together, they will end the curse and rule this kingdom._ "

His words echo with power this time, even long after he vanishes in a cloud of smoke. Andromeda can see how he's related to the dark witch who cursed them.

It's Bellatrix who breaks the tense silence, her heels hitting the stone floor with sharp _clank_ that seem to stab right through Andromeda's heart. She stops right in front of her, and Andromeda has to restrain a flinch when Bellatrix twists one of Andromeda's dark curls around her index finger. "Well, well, well, little sister," she says, voice dangerously mellow, "look who's moving up in the world?"

"I didn't ask for this," Andromeda retorts. She can already feel the weight of the prophecy on her shoulders. It is heavy, and she expects it will only grow heavier from now on. "I don't want this."

"But you have it now," Bellatrix replies cruelly, her intended standing at her side like a dark shadow, and Andromeda bows her head silently.

Their parents say nothing to defend her, and neither does her little sister, nor Rabastan.

Years later, Andromeda will look back on this moment and recognize it for what it was—the first crack in already unsteady relationships—but right now, she simply turns on her heels and leave.

"Don't," she snaps at Rabastan when he moves to fall in behind her.

"Andy, _please_ ," Rabastan tries, and for the first time, the sound of this nickname he uses for her doesn't make her smile.

"Don't follow me," she repeats, glaring at him coldly.

When he doesn't, she tries to tell herself that this is what she wanted.

"You have his eyes, you know. Kind eyes— _soft_ eyes," Bellatrix sneers, as though being soft is the greatest insult she could think of. "You're weak, just like father is—you'd lead this realm to _ruin_ , being so unwilling to do what needs to be done."

Seven years have passed now, seven years since Andromeda learned of her engagement, seven years since she was foretold to save a kingdom that shouldn't be hers from ruin.

In all that time, you'd think her sister would have gotten over Andromeda being chosen instead of her—but then, Bellatrix wouldn't be herself if she stopped holding onto her grudges.

Outside the walls of the castle, their people are suffering. Famines and plagues haunt the kingdom, worse every year, and beggars fill the streets. Narcissa turns her head away from them while Bellatrix sneers, but Andromeda can't seem to ignore them. Her heart goes out to them, to these people she doesn't know, but there is nothing she can do.

Prophecy or not, she isn't queen yet. Andromeda has a feeling that if Bellatrix has anything to say about it, she never will be.

Most of the nobility has moved to the royal castle in these last seven years. It's safer there, the king and queen have declared, but they don't offer the same protection to lowly peasants and servants.

As a result, though, Andromeda sees more of Rabastan than she would have otherwise. Watching him grow from a young boy into a man is oddly fascinating, and she wonders if he perhaps feels the same about watching her grow into a woman.

She doesn't know what to hope for, that he would, or that he wouldn't.

They don't talk about the prophecy—about it foretelling Andromeda falling in love and becoming a queen—but it is there anyway, hovering between them awkwardly. Andromeda can tell that he loves her, that he believes that the lover this prophecy speaks of will be him. That too, remains unvoiced.

As does the fact that now, at fourteen and three years away from her wedding—seven from the time she's supposed to break the curse—she still isn't in love with him.

But perhaps her worst offence is that she's begun to realize that she doesn't want to marry him.

Perhaps Bellatrix is right, after all. Perhaps Andromeda _would_ lead their kingdom to ruin.

But then again, she doesn't think there's much left to ruin. Not after the curse and what her family has been doing to the kingdom.

Not after what, a small part of her whispers, Rabastan has been helping them do to her people.

They think she doesn't know—or maybe they don't even care—that she knows. She's seen the executions, the _cullings_ , when there were too many hungry and angry peasants at the castle's doors and the nobles' food had been kept away from their starving hands for too long.

She's seen the deaths her family deals so freely, and she wants no part in it. She rather thinks that Narcissa had the right idea, asking to be fostered off in another, safer realm.

Mayhaps leaving too is to be Andromeda's fate. She's rather sure, after all, that she won't find her prophesied love here.

Two weeks before her seventeenth birthday, and a month to the wedding, Andromeda asks to see Rabastan in private. It's not quite proper anymore, this kind of meeting, but Andromeda can't find it in her to care.

"Walk with me, Rabastan," she tells him, resting her hand in the crook of his elbow in a gesture she made a thousand times as a child.

"Of course," he replies, following her half a step behind.

They end up in the rose garden. It's grown rather desolate in recent years—not even the castle is safe from the curse now, it seems—but Andromeda still likes to come here. She has fond memories here.

 _They_ have fond memories, she corrects herself, looking at Rabastan's almost bashful face.

It a face only Andromeda ever sees, and as much as it makes her heart twinge in her chest with sorrow, it is part of the problem.

"You're not in love with me," she tells him, immediately raising a finger to shush him when he opens his mouth. "No, let me finish.

"You're not in love with me," she repeats, voice surer now. "You're in love with the _idea_ of me, of what we could be together, but you don't love _me_. And," she adds, a little breathless at finally getting to voice this out loud, "I'm not in love with you either."

"Andy, _please_ —whatever it is, whatever you think I did, we can fix it. _I_ can fix it—I can _change_ ," Rabastan says, reaching out and holding Andromeda's hand in a grip that is painfully tight. " _Please_ , you know I'd follow you anywhere."

"I don't want you to follow me," Andromeda replies, kind but solemn, and only aware as the words finally cross her lips of how _true_ they really are. "I want someone who'd walk _beside_ me."

She tears her hand out of his grip then and leaves. It's not until she reaches the door to her own rooms that she lets her tears finally fall.

This was for the best, she knows, but that doesn't mean she has to have liked it.

That night, she slips out of the castle, a bundle of clothes on her shoulder and a loaf of bread tucked under her arm. The paths of her childhood come back to her quickly, more bittersweet than ever now that she knows she'll never walk them with Rabastan again, and she quickly reaches the cover of the woods.

Once she's there, she pauses for a little while. It just feels so weird, both to know that she's outside the castle for the first time in so long, but also to tell herself that this is _it_ , that she is finally leaving this place and her family behind.

She'd expected to feel sadder, but really, she mostly just feels free.

Free to finally be whoever she's meant to be.

"Alright then," she addresses the dark woods. "Which way to this prophesied love of mine?"

She says it as a joke, but the shining blue light that blinks into existence right before her eyes is no joke.

It shimmers, its glow ebbing and flowing slowly as it circles her. And then, in one blinding flash, it simply shifts.

Where the light once was, now stands a beautifully elegant butterfly, its wings the deepest blue Andromeda's ever seen. As she watches, it flies up to Andromeda's hand—the one that's on her shoulder, holding onto her bundle of clothing—and settles there for an instant, its touch feather-light, before flying off again, hovering in turns around her head and ahead of her.

"I guess this means I should go that way then," Andromeda laughs. Somehow, she already feels better about this choice.

"Soulmate, here I come," she states, before setting into the darkness with a smile on her face.

 _(And if, four years later, she comes back with a commoner who never lets her get away with anything and loves her despite her faults?_

 _Well, that's another story entirely.)_


End file.
